Official Report of consideration of Megrahi petition

[What follows is the text of the Official Report (Hansard) of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee’s consideration of Justice for Megrahi’s petition on Tuesday, 21 April 2015:]

The Convener (Christine Grahame, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale, SNP): PE1370 calls for an independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction. We have received an update from Justice for Megrahi on its latest meeting with Police Scotland—the update is available at annex B of paper J/S4/15/12/1. Justice for Megrahi asks us to consider the principle of appointing an independent prosecutor to consider the forthcoming Police Scotland report. Separately, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has asked the High Court for a ruling on the legal status of the victims’ relatives, to enable it to decide whether they can pursue an appeal on Megrahi’s behalf. A date for a full hearing is yet to be fixed. Do members have any comments on those developments?

I declare that I am a member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign.

John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Ind): The request is entirely reasonable, and I would hope that the committee would throw its weight behind it. There is an independent Queen’s counsel who is assisting with the on-going police investigation. The reports that we have received are very encouraging. Certainly, Justice for Megrahi seems to have “full confidence” in Police Scotland, which is welcome. Police Scotland has said that it will act as an honest broker and thoroughly investigate the incidents that have been alleged in good faith. Of course, it is what happens thereafter that is the challenge. However, I suggest that there is precedent in the system, given that an independent QC is assisting with the police inquiry.

Roderick Campbell (North East Fife) (SNP): I have a couple of points. On the procedural hearings to determine whether a reference to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission can go ahead, we have to wait and watch. That is a very good reason for keeping the petition open. On an independent prosecutor, we should not take a decision without specifically referring the matter to the Crown Office and asking for its comments.

The Convener: My concern is whether it would be competent for the committee to appoint an independent prosecutor. I concur with Roddy Campbell on asking the Crown Office for its comments. I see that John Finnie wants to come back in. I am just giving my views—I am not summing up. I also suggest that we ask the Government for its views on competence in relation to the appointment of an independent prosecutor.

John Finnie: For the avoidance of doubt, I was not saying that that is in the committee’s gift; I was saying that we should lend our support to Justice for Megrahi’s calls for such an appointment to be made. Clearly, there will be a role for the statutory prosecuting office, which is the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Roddy Campbell’s point about the SCCRC is interesting, but it is a separate issue altogether.

The Convener: It is indeed. That is not a problem for us because, with regard to that part of the process, we must wait and see what happens at any full hearing The issue of the roles of the Crown Office and the police throughout is a separate matter.

I take the view that we need to find out the position on who would investigate the Crown Office. How would one go about that? I do not know whether that has ever happened. I am looking around for guidance.

John Finnie: Should we not assume that that is part of the on-going police inquiry? In some respects, the issue is more that, when the police come to submit their report, they are, as things stand, submitting it to someone who has already prejudged the situation with intemperate remarks.

The Convener: Does anyone else want in? I see that Roderick Campbell is shaking his head.

Roderick Campbell: No—I just think that it is premature.

The Convener: That is because we are waiting for the police report.

Do members want me to write to find out whether, in principle, an independent prosecutor could be considered?

John Finnie: It would be interesting to hear the Lord Advocate’s views on that.

The Convener: Okay.

John Finnie: It is clear that, given his prior involvement in the case, he will not be able to have any direct hands-on role anyway in any report that is received.

The Convener: Yes. Frankly, some of the Lord Advocate’s comments during hearings on the petition were not helpful. That may in some ways colour one’s feeling of being content that there is—I hesitate to say—an independence of spirit. What are we going to do? Will we continue the petition? Who will we write to? I seek members’ guidance.

Margaret Mitchell (Central Scotland) (Con): Is the key issue not that we should wait until the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has reported on the victims’ status?

The Convener: Well, there are two issues. The issue that you raise is not a problem—it is fine; we will just wait for the full hearing. We will keep the petition open for that reason. The question is whether we should take any action in relation to an independent prosecutor.

John Finnie: I suggest that we write to the Lord Advocate to ask for his views on that question. Alternatively, we could ask how, given his prior personal involvement, he would envisage being able to take forward a report that was presented to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service by Police Scotland.

The Convener: Do you want us to refer to some of the comments that have already been made by the Crown Office? Do you want to be as pointed as that?

Roderick Campbell: I would prefer the request to be neutral. The committee can relay the petitioners’ position and comments, but without expressing a view on the matter.

The Convener: What we have already heard and said is on the record. We will write a fairly neutral letter. Are members agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

The Convener: Thank you. We will keep the petition open.

"Exceptionally meritorious conduct" by USS Vincennes officers

[What follows is the text of a report published in The Washington Post twenty-five years ago today:]

The Navy has awarded special commendation medals for "meritorious service" to two of the top officers who were serving on the USS Vincennes at the time the cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf with 290 people aboard.

The citations for the special commendations to former Vincennes skipper Capt Will Rogers III and Lt Cmdr Scott E Lustig, who was the ship's weapons and combat systems officer, do not mention the downing of the aircraft on July 3, 1988, an error that took the lives of the plane's passengers and crew.

The medals were awarded to the two men early last year.

Instead, the Navy citation to Rogers states, "The president of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit" -- the armed forces' second highest peacetime award -- "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from April 1987 to May 1989."

After describing the Vincennes' skirmish with seven Iranian boats minutes before it shot down the civilian aircraft, the medal citation states, "Captain Rogers's dynamic leadership, logical judgment and unexcelled devotion to duty reflected great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the US Naval Service."

Lustig, the Vincennes's weapons officer on that day, was given two Navy commendation medals -- one for his four years of service on the Aegis cruiser, the other for his role in the surface skirmish.

The Navy praised Lustig for "heroic achievement" in connection with firing on the seven Iranian boats and lauded his "meritorious service" as weapons and combat systems officer from 1984-88.

Navy officials said this week that while Rogers and some of his officers made mistakes in connection with the shooting, the commendations were awarded for their "contributions to the USS Vincennes over their entire tour on board."

The Navy, in its official report on the jet's downing, did not discipline any of the officers involved but blamed the shooting on a series of human errors that snowballed in the chaos of the ship's Combat Information Center, where Rogers and Lustig were positioned.

"Mistakes were made on board Vincennes," retired admiral William J Crowe Jr, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in his review of the incident, adding, "This regrettable accident, a byproduct of the Iran-Iraq war, was not the result of culpable conduct aboard Vincennes."

But the skipper of another ship that was on the scene of the July 3 incident wrote in the September 1989 issue of the US Naval Institute Proceedings that the Vincennes had gained a reputation for being an overly aggressive "robo-cruiser" and "likely provoked the sea battle with the Iranian gunboats that preceded the shootdown."

"Having watched the performance of the Vincennes for a month before the incident, my impression was clearly that an atmosphere of restraint was not her long suit," wrote Cmdr David R Carlson, skipper of the frigate USS Sides, which monitored the jet's downing. Carlson added, "My guess was that the crew of the Vincennes felt a need to prove the viability of Aegis (the highly sophisticated anti-aircraft system on the cruiser) in the Persian Gulf, and that they hankered for an opportunity to show their stuff."

Both decorated men remain in the Navy: Rogers is commanding officer of a Navy unit that trains senior officers in military tactics; Lustig is executive officer of another Navy cruiser, the Navy said.

[RB: Less than six months after the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655 with the loss of 290 lives, Pan Am flight 103 was destroyed over Lockerbie with the loss of 270.]

A case of gross prosecutorial misconduct

[What follows is excerpted from an article by Robert Parry entitled The US Hand in Libya’s Tragedy published yesterday on the Consortium News website which he edits:]

The mainstream US news media is lambasting the Europeans for failing to stop the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea as desperate Libyans flee their war-torn country in overloaded boats that are sinking as hundreds drown. But the MSM forgets how this Libyan crisis began, including its own key role along with that of “liberal interventionists” such as Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power.

In 2011, it was all the rage in Official Washington to boast about the noble “responsibility to protect” the people of eastern Libya who supposedly were threatened with extermination by the “mad man” Muammar Gaddafi. We also were told endlessly that, back in 1988, Gaddafi’s agents had blown Pan Am 103 out of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The R2Pers, led by then-National Security Council aide Power with the backing of Secretary of State Clinton, convinced President Barack Obama that a “humanitarian intervention” was needed to prevent Gaddafi from slaughtering people whom he claimed were Islamic terrorists.

As this US-orchestrated bombing campaign was about to begin in late March 2011, Power told a New York City audience that the failure to act would have been “extremely chilling, deadly and indeed a stain on our collective conscience.” Power was credited with steeling Obama’s spine to press ahead with the military operation.

Under a United Nations resolution, the intervention was supposed to be limited to establishing no-fly zones to prevent the slaughter of civilians. But the operation quickly morphed into a “regime change” war with the NATO-led bombing devastating Gaddafi’s soldiers who were blown to bits when caught on desert roadways.

Yet, the biggest concern in Official Washington was a quote from an Obama’s aide that the President was “leading from behind” – with European warplanes out front in the air war – when America’s war hawks said the United States should be leading from the front.

At the time, there were a few of us who raised red flags about the Libyan war “group think.” Though no one felt much sympathy for Gaddafi, he wasn’t wrong when he warned that Islamic terrorists were transforming the Benghazi region into a stronghold. Yes, his rhetoric about exterminating rats was over the top, but there was a real danger from these extremists.

And, the Pan Am 103 case, which was repeatedly cited as the indisputable proof of Gaddafi’s depravity, likely was falsely pinned on Libya. Anyone who dispassionately examined the 2001 conviction of Libyan agent Ali al-Megrahi by a special Scottish court would realize that the case was based on highly dubious evidence and bought-and-paid-for testimony.

Megrahi was put away more as a political compromise (with a Libyan co-defendant acquitted) than because his guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed, by 2009, the conviction was falling apart. Even a Scottish appeals court expressed concern about a grave miscarriage of justice. [RB: I suspect this refers to the findings of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and not to an appeal court.] But Megrahi’s appeal was short-circuited by his release to Libya on compassionate grounds because he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

Yet the US mainstream media routinely called him “the Lockerbie bomber” and noted that the Libyan government had taken “responsibility” for the bombing, which was true but only because it was the only way to get punitive sanctions lifted. The government, like Megrahi, continued to proclaim innocence.

During those heady days of bombing Libya in 2011, it also was common for the MSM to smirk at the notion that Megrahi was truly suffering from advanced prostate cancer since he hadn’t died as quickly as some doctors thought he might. Then, after Gaddafi’s regime fell in September 2011, Megrahi’s family invited the BBC and other news organizations to see Megrahi struggling to breathe in his sick bed.

His son, Khaled al-Megrahi, said, “I know my father is innocent and one day his innocence will come out.” Asked about the people who died in the Pan Am bombing, the son said: “We feel sorry about all the people who died. We want to know who did this bad thing. We want to know the truth as well.”

But it was only after Megrahi died on May 20, 2012, that some elements of the MSM acknowledged grudgingly that they were aware of the many doubts about his conviction all along. The New York Times’ obituary carried a detailed account of the evidentiary gaps that were ignored both during the trial in 2001 and during the bombing of Libya in 2011.

The Times noted that “even some world leaders” saw Megrahi “as a victim of injustice whose trial, 12 years after the bombing, had been riddled with political overtones, memory gaps and flawed evidence. … Investigators, while they had no direct proof, believed that the suitcase with the bomb had been fitted with routing tags for baggage handlers, put on a plane at Malta and flown to Frankfurt, where it was loaded onto a Boeing 727 feeder flight that connected to Flight 103 at London, then transferred to the doomed jetliner.”

Besides the lack of proof supporting that hypothesis was the sheer implausibility that a terrorist would assume that an unattended suitcase could make such an unlikely trip without being detected, especially when it would have been much easier to sneak the suitcase with the bomb onto Pan Am 103 through the lax security at Heathrow Airport outside London.

The Times’ obit also noted that during the 85-day trial, “None of the witnesses connected the suspects directly to the bomb. But one, Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who sold the clothing that forensic experts had linked to the bomb, identified Mr Megrahi as the buyer, although Mr Gauci seemed doubtful and had picked others in photo displays. …

“The bomb’s timer was traced to a Zurich manufacturer, Mebo, whose owner, Edwin Bollier, testified that such devices had been sold to Libya. A fragment from the crash site was identified by a Mebo employee, Ulrich Lumpert. Neither defendant testified. But a turncoat Libyan agent testified that plastic explosives had been stored in [Megrahi’s co-defendant’s] desk in Malta, that Mr Megrahi had brought a brown suitcase, and that both men were at the Malta airport on the day the bomb was sent on its way.”

In finding Megrahi guilty, the Scottish court admitted that the case was “circumstantial, the evidence incomplete and some witnesses unreliable,” but concluded that “there is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt” of Megrahi.

However, the evidence later came under increasing doubt. The Times wrote: “It emerged that Mr Gauci had repeatedly failed to identify Mr Megrahi before the trial and had selected him only after seeing his photograph in a magazine and being shown the same photo in court. The date of the clothing sale was also in doubt.” Scottish authorities learned, too, that the US Justice Department paid Gauci $2 million for his testimony.

As for the bomb’s timer, The Times noted that the court called Bollier “untruthful and unreliable” and “In 2007, Mr Lumpert admitted that he had lied at the trial, stolen a timer and given it to a Lockerbie investigator. Moreover, the fragment he identified was never tested for residue of explosives, although it was the only evidence of possible Libyan involvement.

“The court’s inference that the bomb had been transferred from the Frankfurt feeder flight was also cast into doubt when a Heathrow security guard revealed that Pan Am’s baggage area had been broken into 17 hours before the bombing, a circumstance never explored. Hans Köchler, a United Nations observer, called the trial ‘a spectacular miscarriage of justice,’ words echoed by [South African President Nelson] Mandela.”

In other words, Megrahi’s conviction looked to have been a case of gross prosecutorial misconduct, relying on testimony from perjurers and failing to pursue promising leads (like the possibility that the bomb was introduced at Heathrow, not transferred from plane to plane to plane). And those problems were known prior to Megrahi’s return to Libya in 2009 and prior to the US-supported air war against Gaddafi in 2011.

Yet, Andrea Mitchell at MSNBC and pretty much everyone else in the MSM repeated endlessly that Megrahi was “the Lockerbie bomber” and that Libya was responsible for the atrocity, thus further justifying the “humanitarian intervention” that slaughtered Gaddafi’s soldiers and enabled rebel militias to capture Tripoli in summer 2011.

Today's session of the Justice Committee

At this morning’s meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee it was decided (1) to keep open Justice for Megrahi’s petition (PE1370) calling for an independent inquiry into the conviction of Abdelbaset Megrahi; and (2) to write to the Lord Advocate enquiring how the Crown Office proposes to deal with the forthcoming Police Scotland report on JFM’s allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of police officers, prosecutors and Crown forensic scientists in the Lockerbie investigation, prosecution and trial. This arises out of the suggestion made on this blog that a special prosecutor or independent counsel might be required, in the light of the Lord Advocate’s publicly expressed views about the merits of JFM’s allegations and the character of JFM members.

A video recording of the Justice Committee session is now available here.

Libyan agreement to neutral venue trial confirmed

[What follows is an article headlined Lockerbie trial agreement published in The Herald on this date in 1998:]

The two men suspected of causing the Lockerbie bombing could soon be handed over for trial in a neutral country, reports claimed yesterday after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi met British representatives, writes Ron MacKenna.

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora was among the 270 who died in the disaster a decade ago, and Professor Robert Black, from Edinburgh University, had a 40-minute meeting with the Libyan leader in Tripoli on Monday. They said the talks were "of some substance" but refused to elaborate. However, Egypt's Middle East News Agency quoted Ibrahim el-Ghoweily [RB: normally anglicised as “Legwell”], a lawyer for the suspects, as saying the two sides had agreed "to hold the trial in a third country with a panel of judges headed by a Scottish judge and in light of Scottish law".

The talks indicate movement towards ending the seemingly intractable problems over having the two men accused of the outrage tried. Both Britain and the United States both want to try the men but Libya has so far refused to surrender them to either country, saying they will not get a fair trial. El-Ghoweily said Dr Swire and other representatives of British relatives will "work to convince" Britain and the United States "that the trial should be held in a third country".

Libyan officials have apparently indicated they are prepared to compromise, allowing a trial before an international panel headed by a Scottish judge. British relatives would prefer the trial to be held in Scotland but many have indicated they would agree to it being held in a neutral country, possibly the Netherlands. El-Ghoweily said both sides had agreed on Monday on "the importance of avoiding prejudiced jurors and any country in which the media or other factors would influence the trial", and wanted the hearing to take place "as soon as possible".

The British and American governments argue that the accused men should not be allowed to dictate conditions for their trial and they are concerned that there will be no jury.

[A press release issued at the end of the visit to Libya by Dr Swire and me between 18 and 20 April 1998 reads as follows:]

A meeting to discuss issues arising out of the Lockerbie bombing was held in the premises of the Libyan Foreign Office in Tripoli on the evening of Saturday 18 April 1998.  Present were Mr Abdul Ati Obeidi, Under-Secretary of the Libyan foreign Office; Mr Mohammed Belqassem Zuwiy, Secretary of Justice of Libya; Mr Abuzaid Omar Dorda, Permanent Representative of Libya to the United Nations; Dr Ibrahim Legwell, head of the defence team representing the two Libyan citizens suspected of the bombing; Dr Jim Swire, spokesman for the British relatives group UK Families-Flight 103; and Professor Robert Black QC, Professor of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh and currently a visiting professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

At the meeting discussion focused upon the plan which had been formulated in January 1994 by Professor Black for the establishment of a court to try the suspects which would:

* operate under the criminal law and procedure of Scotland

* have in place of a jury an international panel of judges presided over by a senior Scottish judge

* sit not in Scotland but in a neutral country such as The Netherlands.

Among the issues discussed were possible methods of appointment of  the international panel of judges, and possible arrangements for the transfer of the suspects from Libya for trial and for ensuring their safety and security pending and during the trial.

Dr Legwell confirmed, as he had previously done in January 1994, that his clients agreed to stand trial before such a court if it were established.  The representatives of the Libyan Government stated, as they had done in 1994 and on numerous occasions since then, that they would welcome the setting up of such a court and that if it were instituted they would permit their two citizens to stand trial before it and would co-operate in facilitating arrangements for that purpose.

Dr Swire and Professor Black undertook to persist in their efforts to persuade the Government of the United Kingdom to join Libya in accepting this proposal.

On Sunday 19 April 1998, Professor Black met the South African ambassador to Libya and Tunisia, His Excellency Ebrahim M Saley, and discussed with him current developments regarding the Lockerbie bombing.  He also took the opportunity to inform the ambassador of how much President Mandela's comments on the Lockerbie affair at the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in October 1997 in Edinburgh had been appreciated.

On Monday 20 April, Dr Swire and Professor Black had a meeting a lasting some 40 minutes with the Leader of the Revolution, Muammar al-Qaddafi.  Also present were the Libyan Foreign Secretary, Mr Omar al-Montasser, and Mr Dorda.  The Leader was informed of the substance of the discussions held on Saturday 18 April, and expressed his full support for the conclusions reached.

BBC fails in legal bid to televise Lockerbie trial

[What follows is the text of a report published on the BBC News website on this date in 2000:]

The BBC has lost its appeal to televise the trial of the two Libyans accused of causing the Lockerbie bombing.

The corporation learned on Thursday that its court action to broadcast the trial on television and the internet had been rejected by the High Court in Edinburgh.

Two men, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, 47, and Al Ali Khalifa Fhimah, 43, stand accused of killing 270 people in the tragedy on 21 December 1988.

All 259 on board Pan Am flight 103 from Heathrow to New York perished, along with 11 people in the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

The BBC had appealed against an earlier ruling which said the proceedings could not be televised.

The original request was turned down because it was judged that the Libyan defendants' right to a fair trial was more important than the media's right to freedom of expression.

The trial begins on 3 May [2000] and the BBC had hoped to broadcast proceedings live on the internet and show extracts on BBC news programmes.

The panel of appeal judges, headed by Lord Kirkwood, heard pleas from the BBC's QC, Roy Martin, that the initial decision should be reversed.

He told the court the Lockerbie trial was of unique interest, nationally and internationally.

The BBC had argued that the former Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie, was breaching the European Convention on Human Rights, which is now a part of Scottish law, by not allowing the trial to be broadcast.

It contested Lord Macfadyen's ruling that witnesses at the Lockerbie trial would be affected by the presence of cameras.

The judge had said there was a risk of witnesses not attending the trial in Camp Zeist, Holland, if they knew it was being televised.

There were also concerns that witnesses would know what evidence had been given, and that some might play to the cameras.

The corporation's case centred on the decision by the former Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie, to allow relatives of those killed in the 1988 bombing to watch encoded pictures of the trial in four locations - Dumfries, London, New York and Washington.

But in his judgement, Lord McFadyen said there was a clear distinction between transmitting pictures to remote sites, to allow relatives to watch proceedings, and broadcasting to the general public.

"A fair and just trial ... in a neutral country"

[What follows is excerpted from an article on The Pan Am 103 Crash Website, which is itself based partly on a report from this date in 1998 by the Libyan news agency JANA:]

Jim Swire held talks in Libya on Saturday with the justice minister about the trial for two suspects in the attack, Libya's official news agency reported on the 19th April. J[im] Swire, and victims' legal adviser Robert Black met Justice Minister Mohammed Belqasim al-Zuwiy [or Zwai] after arriving in Tripoli.

They discussed suggestions by Swire and Black “concerning reaching ... a fair and just trial of the two suspects in a neutral country,” Libya's official news agency, JANA, reported. Swire and Black drove 215 miles from Tunisia to the Libyan capital Saturday, Swire's spokesman, David Ben-Aryeah, said in London. Swire told Ben-Aryeah he was grateful for the “efficient and warm welcome” they received.

Black and Swire held talks in Tripoli this week with Legwell and Libyan foreign affairs and justice officials.

The most important meeting was held with the Libyan lawyer for Fhima and Megrahi in Tripoli, Dr Ibrahim Legwell. Ibrahim Legwell said he told Scottish lawyer Robert Black and Jim Swire, that his two Libyan clients were ready to stand trial under Scottish law in a neutral country.

“We agreed on several basic points and details,” Legwell told Reuters in a telephone interview from the Libyan capital Tripoli. “I confirmed to them, as I have done previously, that my clients would stand for trial before such a court, which will be set not in Scotland nor the United States, but in a neutral country,” he added. “We also agreed that it would be established with an international panel of judges to be agreed upon and presided over by a senior Scottish judge. The court would operate under the criminal law and procedures of Scotland,” he added as well.

“We also are very concerned about how to ensure the safety, the security and the rights for our clients pending, during and after the trial,” he said. Legwell said Libya's Justice Minister Mohamed Belqasem Zwai, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Abdel Ati al-Obeidi, and Libya's representative at the UN, Abouzid Omar Dorda, attended part of his meetings with Black and Swire when these issues were discussed.

Zwai said he expected a settlement of the dispute over where to hold the trial. ”We expect we will reach a solution that satisfies all parties before the World Court issues its decision,” he told reporters in Cairo late Monday.

The only two nations in the civilised world rejecting Lockerbie compromise

[What follows is a report on a meeting held on 16 April 1998 in Cairo between officials of the Arab League, including the Secretary-General Dr Esmat Abdel-Meguid, and Dr Jim Swire and me:]

The Scottish lawyer Robert Black said on the 16th of April in Cairo after the talks with Abdel Maguid, that his latest proposal to end a dispute between Libya, Britain and the United States over the trial of two Libyan suspects in a 1988 airliner bombing would be his last. Black gave no details on the modifications in the more recent proposal. But he said there was “fine-tuning” to make it more acceptable to the British and Americans.

“What we are hoping for is that continued pressure on these two governments will cause them to see the error of their ways,” Black said.

Robert Black told a news conference he was “51 percent sure” the Libyans would accept the modified proposal. He would not give details, but Black and Swire are suggesting the suspects be tried under Scottish law in a neutral venue by an international panel of judges, without a jury. But Robert Black, a legal expert advising the victims' families, said there was little hope the United States would accept the proposal, although international pressure might succeed in winning Britain's support. “One simply has to give up on the American government,” Black said. “They are unmovable.”

“It's now plain that the United States and the United Kingdom as far as I know are the only two nations in the civilised world which are not saying 'this is a sensible compromise solution, accept it',” Black said after meeting the head of the Cairo-based Arab League. “What I am hoping is that the United Kingdom can see the error of its ways if it is given an opportunity marginally to save face. They have to find a solution. If this proposal does not work, then I suspect that this may very well be the end of the line.

“I can't very well go on drafting scheme after scheme, that are accepted by one side but rejected outright by the other. All three are going to have to accept something with which they are not 100% happy in order for there to be a compromise,” he said. "If they are prepared to do that then there is a remote possibility of progress. But I wouldn't put it above saying there is a slight chance. But any chance is better than no chance."

Swire slammed the British government for not moving fast enough to end the crisis. “For six years, I have been waiting for the men charged with the brutal murder of my daughter to be put on trial but on March 20, the permanent representative of my country in the United Nations was busy telling the Security Council that the sanctions they imposed on Libya were not working.

“Why have you kept us waiting for six years when they are not working? They are demolishing the thing they invited us to depend on and if that doesn't make you angry, then it should.”

Jim Swire, who acted as representative for British victims of the bombing, said Abdel-Meguid would pass the new proposal to the Libyans.

[RB: Just over four months later the UK and USA accepted the solution of a Scottish court in a neutral venue.]